Modern meat grinding systems not only grind meat, but also separate meat from undesirable material, such as gristle, hard fat, connective tissue, sinew, and bone. Such systems typically provide the unprocessed meat to a pump or screw system, which delivers the unprocessed meat to a knife rotating against a perforated plate. The knife cuts the meat into smaller pieces as the pump or screw forces the meat through the perforated plate. Centrifugal force generated by the pump or rotating screw drives the meat toward the perimeter of the plate and concentrates the undesirable material near the center of the plate. The plate typically contains an opening into a pipe that directs the undesirable material to a storage container. Once enough of the undesirable material has been collected, the undesirable material is fed through a second meat grinding system to further separate any remaining meat from the undesirable material in a reclamation process similar to that described above. The meat reclaimed from the undesirable material is then added back to the meat ground in the initial pass and the further resulting undesirable material is discarded or otherwise processed separately.
One drawback associated with such prior art devices is the use of large troughs or indentations in the plate to direct waste material to the collection passage, once the waste material is separated from the meat. It would be desirable to reduce the size of the indentations, to increase the number of holes in the plate available to process the meat.
Another drawback associated with such prior art devices is the placement of the waste material curved opening at the center of the plate, preventing use of the drive shaft to drive beyond the plate. It would be desirable to relocate the curved opening to allow use of the drive shaft beyond the plate. The difficulties encountered discussed here and above are substantially eliminated by the present invention.